Saintes is an installation incorporating a series of resin sculptures casted from the inside of hollow Virgin Mary statues. By treating the negative space inside the statues as the “new icon”, Rosalie H. Maheux removes both physical and psychological aspects related to the Virgin Mary, thus offering a contrasting new perspective on the representation of women.

With the shapes obtained from the interior cast of the hollow statues and the re-appropriation of catholic shrines, the work confronts the idea of procreation versus pleasure while proposing an intergenerational and critical conversation between the artist’s catholic cultural background and her feminist views.

This project has been produced with the support of the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council and support from Canada Council for the Arts.

💓

Third Space Gallery, in partnership with Flourish Festival, Fredericton, New Brunswick, CAN. 2018

Third Space Gallery

Third Space Gallery

Third Space Gallery

Third Space Gallery

Third Space Gallery

TRUCK Contemporary (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), 2018.

TRUCK Contemporary (Calgary, Alberta, Canada)

TRUCK Contemporary (Calgary, Alberta, Canada)

TRUCK Contemporary (Calgary, Alberta, Canada)

Summer is Over I and II

Pickerel skin, spandex, rope and tree branches. 2017

Floating rings. 2 x 6’, 2017

Summer is Over II

Summer is Over I

Summer is Over

Strands

Strands is an ongoing collaborative, live performative, visual and musical project with musician Jasmyn Burke from Weaves. With an over head projectors, lights, installation, costumes and/or dancers, we produce unique atmospheres, aesthetics and motions for every performed songs.

Romantic Date

Study of Purity

Work-In-Progress. 2017

Way too Emotional

Lenticular work, 37"x 63", photographs on paper, 2016.

Ladies

Ladies, multiple, various sizes, urethane resin, concrete, 2016.

In Christianity, the Virgin Mary is seen as the greatest of all women, mothers and wives Because she was graceful, obedient, faithful and humble, she is portrayed as a role model and the ultimate representation of women.

Cast from the negative space of various plaster statues of the Virgin Mary, Ladies is a series of sculptures that functions as a laboratory and an inventory. The laboratory experiment involves shifting between reality and representation, the commonly known object and its non-figurative image. I remove any typical and physical features from the representation of Mary and reduce it to its most minimal and unrecognizable state. I divert the idea of the icon and the role model to its veritable structure by filling and exploiting the emptiness behind the object/image. I try to offer a more realistic and diverse perspectives on the image of woman by rejecting all physical and psychological aspects imposed by the Virgin Mary, a symbol manipulated by male-dominated institutions.

During Quebec's "Great Darkness" stories would circulate about priests who were constantly encouraging women to have more children. They would sermonize to those who failed at their marital duties. My grandmother was a fervent catholic during this period and devoted to the Virgin Mary. She had 13 children and became the stepmother of 6 others. Based on my family story, I wanted to illustrate the pressure of procreation by creating a large inventory of mass-produced objects. However, with shapes and stereotypically gendered colours that recall sex toys, I am playing with the concepts of virginity and procreation in opposition to my beliefs about freedom of sexual choice, experimentation, non-heteronormative standards, sexuality for pleasure, and freedom of choice.

Bug Collection

Spot swordtail butterfly

Dead butterfly, wood and satin, 3.5" x 2" x 2.25", 2014.

Southern Green Stink Bug

Dead southern green stink bug, wood, satin, 2,5"x1"x1,5", 2014.

Cockroach

Dead cockroach, wood and satin, 2"x1"x1.5", 2014.

Grapevine beetle

Dead grapevine beetle, wood and satin, 2" x 1.5" x 1.5", 2014.

Tabanidae

Dead tabanidae, wood, satin, 3"x1.5"x1", 2014

Alder fly

Dead alder fly, satin, wood, 3.75"x 2"x 1.5", 2014.

Bug Collection

Installation view.

Bug Collection

Installation view.

Impress the Reaper

Impress the Reaper

Sculpture, 44"x21"x59", 2014-2015.

Wood, pink satin with trimming, padding and embroidery, miscellaneous hardware including handles and name plate.

The dualism of death and life is explored in Impress the Reaper, a life-size sculpture of a coffin suggesting a backbend posture alluding to 'Eros and Thanatos', the theory expounded by Freud to expresses the duality between human nature's basic instincts. Eros, which drives the instinct of life, love and sexuality is expressed through the coffin’s design and materials. Thanatos, is expressed by the coffin itself. The backbend shape of the coffin suggests a physically active reading between the viewer’s body and the work. This sculpture proposes an alternate to traditional funeral practices in proposing an orgasmic end and flirts with Shakespeare’s euphemism of the “Little Death”.

Lick that Pussy

Lick that Pussy

Kinetic sculpture, approx. 35 cm x 32 cm x 20 cm, 2012

At first look, Lick that Pussy is totally harmless and attractive because of its toy like aesthetic. There is a perversity to this sculpture, it simultaneously entices the viewer to engage with it while threatening to reveal something vulgar. It plays on the idea of knowing things while being an interactive sculpture that contextualizes the use of crude popular language. It is also an acknowledgement of the differences between adults and childrens view of things and life.

Stigmates

Wood, plastic, LED lights, approx. 5.5" x 3" x 4", 2012.

Collaboration

Art installation produced in collaboration with artist Diana Lynn VanderMeulen (http://www.dlvdm.ca/) for a music performance by musician Jasmyn Burke from Weaves. (http://weavesband.com/